Just Like Long Ago
by Light1
Summary: Janos and Vorador through the ages. They have always been pulled together even when the world conspired otherwise.


**Just Like Long Ago.**

Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain belongs to Edios and Crystal dynamics, they are not me. I am making £0.00 out of this fic, it is written purely because I have a burning need to create.

Rating: PG-13

Part: One of One

Set: Before the Games and During BO2

Authoress note: Just like old times.

**Just Like Long Ago.**

The wind had long been a touch Janos loved. The wind had a life all its own, it had moods and feelings that could be felt through flight. The wind could be playful or it could be destructive. It was as alive as he was. Yet Janos doubted the wind had ever contemplated the nature of God. He doubted the wind had had to watch its brothers die by their own hand because of the dreadful silence. He shook himself trying to keep the mournful thoughts at bay. Instead he focused on the wind. Felt it move through his feathers, pulling a few lose and taking them from him as payment. He twisted in the air, rolling, for a brief moment the world turned upside down before righting itself as he came level again. Closing his wings briefly he dropped, falling at an angle, before opening them and catching himself. Once again the wind took a few feathers as payment for the stunt. He heard laughter below him and looked down. It seemed he was to have a visitor this evening. Vorador was on the path to the aerie. The fledgling had looked up to see his sire playing in the wind. It was always pleasant to see one so sad take enjoyment from something so simple. Janos dipped his wings and landed slowly, gently. Feathers fell when he did so. Vorador smiled at him and the two turned to walk back to the aerie together. Janos disliked walking. He would do it around his home, for the corridors, large though they were, were still not large enough for him to spread his wings fully. But he disliked walking when outside. He would do it only for Vorador.

The wind seemed to agree with him and spent its energy trying to lift him back to the sky. Deprived of its companion, it seemed saddened. Janos couldn't help but feel cumbersome on the ground. His shoulders bunched to keep the longest part of his wings from trailing on the floor. His gait was lumbering and his balance shaky. It was not how he would choose to travel if given the choice. But then when he lifted Vorador the last time, his cries had echoed across Nosgoth and Janos felt he had gone deaf for a time. So they walked. As a courtesy to his fledgling he walked.

"You are losing a lot of feathers," Vorador smiled, after a few moments silence "tell me when the last time you properly looked to your wings was?" Vorador's expression changed to something suggestive, "I wouldn't mind helping." The words were innocent enough to a stranger who did not know about the sensitivity of wings.

"Children are not meant to nag their elders," Janos answered. He had been distracted for a long time now. Something was happening, he could feel it in the wind. Something was wrong with the land, it was dying and screaming out at him through the wind and he did not know how to stop it. When faced with thoughts like that tending one's feathers becomes unimportant.

"I'm not nagging. I'm simply aware that if you keep neglecting such things then you won't as much as glide but fall," The lake by Janos' home had frozen once again as it always did in the winter and they walked safely across it.

"Hush Vorador, my mind had been elsewhere that is all." He snorted at the idea of him falling "I will not fall from the sky any time soon."

"What is it that comes before falls?" Vorador seemed to ask himself "it's on the tip of my tongue, begins with P."

"I'm not listening," Janos huffed before spreading wings once again, ignoring the dead feathers that fell and with a single powerful motion rose up into the air. Leaving Vorador to scale the cliff side himself. The cliff was not dangerous, and after years of visits Vorador knew the way well. To a stranger the great wall might seem unclimbable but not to him. But as he had been saying to his sire only moments ago, pride comes before a fall and his confidence in the path nearly cost him great injury. The stone crumbled, having been broken by the expansion of water in the cracks. He lost his footing and for one sickening moment the world spun. Upside down the land seemed twisted and strange, the ice lake moving to catch him was foreboding. The ice would break, he knew this. But he did not strike the ice, a strong grip on his coat stopped him mid fall and he rose upwards.

"What was that you were saying about falling?" Janos couldn't help but smile, dropping his child onto the balcony and landing with a slight thump behind him.

/*/*/

Janos felt himself lifted, felt thick arms that used to hold much strength now barely strong enough to lift him. The grip was knowing. Arms slid under the longest flight feathers holding wings comfortably closed, keeping his weight off of the joints where feather met flesh.

"Where was it you said you found him?" Vorador's voice after so long. After such a long time believing his fledgling to be dead.

"He was being held by the Hylden to feed the Mass," Kain answered. Janos was astonished by the youth. He was something so young and had accomplished so much, he stank of pre-destined pathways. The fledgling had come to him, had freed him from his imprisonment and had brought him here. To where his child was. Words had been spoken upon his arrival but exhaustion and starvation had taken its toll and had pushed him to his knees shortly after. They were underground, far from the wind. He hadn't felt the wind in centuries and he missed it. But he didn't care at the moment for it was Vorador who held him. Vorador who lifted and carried him. There were brief words between the fledging Kain and Vorador, then the voices fell silent and the smell of pre-destined pathways faded as the fledgling sought his own respite from the world.

"I know you're awake," Vorador said once he was moving again.

"Yes," Janos answered, wishing for a moment that Vorador did not know him so well.

"It's alright, these are my rooms, and none will enter here," Janos felt himself lowered to what felt like an old, worn mattress. It was nothing like the ones that used to be in the old mansion or his Aerie. Vorador rolled him gently onto his front, knowing from years together that lying on wings brought discomfort. They were silent for a long time. After so long alone there were no words to begin what they needed to say. Absently Janos ruffled his wings, feeling the feathers sitting awkwardly, not fitting together well, some falling to the bed.

"Let me fix them," Vorador's voice was soft and calming, gentle as if speaking to a mortal child. Then talons moved through tattered feathers. Pulling free those that were long dead, useless in flight. Janos shuddered feeling what he always felt when Vorador's hands were on him. He was shaking after a few moments. So long without soft touch, so long without any form of kindness had left him wanting and vulnerable to any form of gentility. The sound he made must have been louder than he thought for Vorador flinched, his own hands shaking.

"I thought you were dead," The words were whispered,

"As did I," Janos answered

"I don't know if I can believe you're real," Vorador's hands were shaking harder, "but I want to, I really, really want to." Janos moved, his muscled screaming at him after so long without true movement. He held Vorador's face in one hand and tried to smile.

"I am here," he said slowly "I am real, and I have missed you so." Vorador looked as if he would reply but it was stopped by black lips closing over his own.

**End**


End file.
